Bituminous Hearings

Millionaires' Day was held in Washington last week, this time by the Senate Interstate Commerce Committee in its bituminous coal investigation.* The millionaires were three: Charles M. Schwab, chairman of the Bethlehem Steel Corp.; John D. Rockefeller Jr.; and Richard B. Mellon, a director of the Pittsburgh Coal Co. They contrasted sharply —"Charlie" Schwab, with his theatrical rags-to-riches air; the grave, earnest heir of John D. Rockefeller, with his air of Christian concern over a social evil; and Banker Mellon, cautious, acquainted with politicians, suspicious of the Committee's motives, uncommunicative, unsympathetic.

The trio had been called as a result of developments earlier in the week. From witness after witness the Committee had heard more about strike conditions in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Clergymen and newsgatherers (including passionate Fannie Hurst) had brought fresh tales of squalor, brutality, poverty, Bolshevism.

Then Van A. Bittner, representative of the United Mine Workers, had laid upon Mr. Schwab's and Mr. Rockefeller's interests in West Virginia, the same charge that had previously been laid upon Mr. Mellon's company and other Pittsburgh operators, namely, violation of a wage agreement, in spirit if not in letter. The method used, he said, had been to shut down the mines for a time, then reopen them and offer work to non-union men at wages below the agreed union scale. These moves by the Schwab and Rockefeller companies, Bittner declared, were what had driven the Pittsburgh operators to adopt like measures, to meet the price competition.

Mr. Schwab took the stand first to give the Committee his side of this story. Corpulent, jovial, ingratiating, he refused to discuss details, saying that he had been busy playing golf last summer and had now just returned from Europe. He said the Committee must get the details from his subordinates. But he was delighted to give the Committee and the world the benefit of his long experience as an employer: "It has been a broad policy into which the question of the open shop or union labor does not enter. As the result of my forty years' management of labor I have never had a serious difficulty with my men in my lifetime. I believe in the eld theory of supply and demand.

"The most important stockholders of the Bethlehem Steel are its workmen. I never made a cent out of Bethlehem Steel. It's just been a labor of love and all I have tried to do is drive a peg to mark progress in human relations."

The Committee reminded Mr. Schwab that it was asking about broken contracts with miners.

"In broad theory, I will never admit that our company broke the Jacksonville agreement — admitting that I do not know any of the details . . ." answered Mr. Schwab. "I'm just a plain, blunt steel worker out of the mills of Pittsburgh, but no man here is more anxious to help in the situation than I am."

Then he offered affable advice to President John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers. "If I may take this occasion to express an opinion in the presence of Mr. Lewis," he said, "I think that he made a mistake in holding to the high wages."